Lord Of The Freeborn (Book 7) (5 page)

Ashgood was no coward, but if he had learned anything at God’s Tower it was that no good things come from standing against a wizard with his dander up.

At the first explosion—the one that took the young, brash mage, Ashgood had taken a few running steps and dove headfirst into the snow-covered brambles behind a pine tree. He fell, tumbling farther than he expected, smashing his hand, and grazing his cheek before landing in a gully formed in the dry creek bed. He coiled there, staying still until the blast no longer echoed, then—ignoring pain that throbbed throughout his entire body—he peered over the ridge.

A thin Koradictine mage cast killing magic, engulfing Gil and Camric in flames, and tearing into Hasi with a cloud of razors that left nothing behind but a pool of crimson stained snow.

Even if he could gather himself to race into the clearing, Ashgood saw that any attempt to help his mates would be futile. The mage was filled with wizardlust so deep that no one who got in his way would walk out alive. So, Ashgood lay back, shivering in the gully while a trail of melted ice ran down the small of his back, and he waited while the wind carried snippets of the mage’s chanting, its tone strong like an entire choir whose voices were raised and singing to the powers. Explosions and the sound of splintering wood roared out with each of the mage’s spells. The screams of horrific deaths came to him, all muted against the falling snow.

Then it became quiet.

Still Ashgood waited, suffering the trickles of snow that melted to run over his neck, down his spine, and to the small of his back.

A hawk whirled in the winter sky as the wind blew snow into drifts and caused branches to scritch together in rackety laughter. Ashgood’s fingers grew as numb as his toes. He thought, perhaps, that he had cracked some ribs, and, for a moment he considered the idea that he might just die out here, alone and huddled down in this creekbed.

When he could no longer bear to wait, he eked his head over the ledge.

The only movement was snow falling across the clearing, and edges of clothing, scarves and fur, that fluttered lifelessly in the bitter wind. Ashgood crawled out of his hiding hole, watching the hillsides carefully for movement.

Seeing no signs of mages, he limped across the field.

One-by-one, he stopped at each of his compatriots, and one-by-one he found they were dead. The patrol was gone, he thought, straightening his back painfully and feeling bitter air spear his lungs.

He was alone.

He looked around and saw the falling snow had not yet grown so deep that it obscured the trail the Koradictine had taken.

It led directly toward Dorfort.

Chapter 9

Something was wrong.

Garrick fell to one knee, his vision swimming.

All the Freeborn were here to finalize plans for the trip to Spire. They had just finished supper, and were retiring to the common meeting chamber. Sound cascaded inside his head—voices echoed and ceramic plates and spoons clattered in the distance, amplified and warped by the government center’s high, rounded ceiling. Garrick’s stomach turned in on itself. He felt Braxidane’s hunger grow hard and substantial, twisting with sibilant whispers at each turn. It was too much. He hadn’t lied when he told Ellesadil he could control this curse of Braxidane’s, but control had its price, and now that price was coming due. It had been too long since Garrick had given his darkness its head.

It was nearly time to step back into Existence and restore himself.

The hunger screamed, though, it screamed in a strange and chilling way that led him to know something was different this time, something was more than wrong. It was tinged today with a malignant hue, a tumorous, translucent sheen that glistened in ways he had never before felt.

Poison!

Yes. That was it. Poison, ugly and foreign. He looked across the chamber to see Reynard speaking with three other Freeborn, gesturing in his usual, overly animated way.

The idiot!

Garrick bought himself time by setting a gate and casting magic that turned his hunger in on the substance. Yes, it was poison. Hemlock, paired with other toxins that were designed to hide it. He felt it oozing through his veins, blurring his sight and attacking his nerves, flowing over what remained of his life force like wax sealing a letter. His toes were already numb, and his fingertips growing cold. He wrapped Braxidane’s magic around the thing, and Garrick could see the poison’s origin, its broad leaves curling coldly against the wind as it was harvested, dried, then ground and slipped silently into the soup he had just consumed.

The hunger raised itself then, unbidden by Garrick, untethered. It attacked, ripping into the poison with intent so violent he thought perhaps his blood had boiled over. Braxidane’s magic was bold and it was angry. It burned down his bones and ran through the flesh of his body like a river of fire.

The effort of holding the hunger back was taking too great a toll now. His muscles grew weaker by the moment, his life force nearly spent. He should have returned to Existence days ago, but there had been so much work to do and he convinced himself he could hold this hunger down—and he had done so, too. He had quelled Braxidane’s darkness, made it stay in line.

Until now.

Damn Reynard. Was he really this selfish? Was he really senseless enough to poison a god-touched mage?

Yes, Garrick thought. He really
was
, and he was more than that. Reynard was devious. And he was unhappy. Reynard was unhappy the mages had chosen Spire in the first place. He was unhappy he wasn’t strong enough to confront Garrick straight-on.

Garrick gritted his teeth as the mage glanced over his shoulder at him, a glance that confirmed all of Garrick’s inner thoughts.

Nothing had changed between them.

The tension was, if anything, worse, and this moment of perfect clarity gave Garrick to understand that Reynard had used this gathering of the mages as an opportunity to catch him unawares. He wondered briefly who Reynard had set up to take the brunt of the accusation.

“Is everything all right, sir?” Will said, coming to his side.

Garrick felt the boy warp as he approached—here one moment, then distant, then here again. His young voice wavered. The sound of his boots rang out nearer and nearer, yet echoed away into the distance. Garrick’s hunger stirred as the boy touched his shoulder. Will’s waiflike innocence permeated his being, and the darkness twisted in his gut.

“No,” Garrick heard himself mutter.
No,
he thought.

“Get away, Will! Get away!”

Will drew back, but did not leave.

Garrick felt the thrill of freedom surge through the thing inside him as it finished feasting on the poison. It surged, and he knew his pitiful life force could not hold it back any longer. It was too late.
He
was too late.

The black power rose up. He felt the gate set, and he felt magestuff flow.

You have given …
Braxidane whispered with such sickening pleasure that Garrick knew his superior had been lying in wait for just this very moment.

He fell to his hands and knees.

“Run,” he whispered to Will.

The boy stood rooted in place, staring at Garrick with panic on his face.

… Now you must take.

“I said, run!” he screamed.

Will ran.

Garrick struggled to his feet and set his gates. If he could hold it back for just one moment more, perhaps it would be enough that Will could make safety. Magestuff poured into his veins, and he gagged on power that tasted of raw ginger and cinnamon.

The faces of Freeborn mages suddenly turned ashen.

He cast magic, then.

His fireball erupted with a deafening roar across the hallway. The chamber filled with smoke and fire and with voices that shouted and screamed and moaned and cried out in agony. The sharp odor of charred wood came then, and his hunger yearned for the force of the Freeborn life that was now hanging in the air like slabs of butcher’s beef. Members of his order, Garrick realized. He had killed members of his own order.

Without thinking, he harvested that energy. It filtered through his body with the sharp sensation of cold water drank parched.

Garrick fought against the hunger, fought against the urge to inhale them all in one maddening breath. He leaned against a tabletop, feeling the life force he had consumed and pressing back as Braxidane’s hunger wailed against his restraint.

He felt movement of mages racing for exits.

Had the boy escaped? Had this darkness destroyed him? The idea was an arrow in his gut. He could not have devoured Will, could he? As these thoughts formed, Garrick saw Reynard crawling from under a broken table.

“Traitor!” he called as he stepped forward.

A look of panic crossed the Freeborn’s face, and magic formed on his fingers.

Garrick pinned the assassin into a corner and felt the tide of his dark power draw toward the mage. He could strip Reynard of his life force. He had done it before.

He took a stride, and reached his hand forward.

There came a distant blast, a low, rumbling explosion from somewhere outside the chamber.

Garrick paused his reach toward Reynard, and turned his head to the sound. It came from outside the government center, from the manor yard if Garrick heard right.

Another blast rumbled. Yes, the manor yard.

Puzzled, he turned back to find Reynard had slipped away.

Chapter 10

Neuma marched through town, and approached the government center’s gate. Dorfort was burning around her, and Hezarin’s magic flared again and again.

A guard stood before her and before the gate, his battle axe gleaming in the light of fires.

“You can’t come in,” the guardsman said.

She channeled magic, and closed her fist. The man gave a choked sputter, and Neuma cast a blast that tore a hole in the foundation of the gate itself.

Snow crunched under her boots as she continued into the courtyard.

A satisfying murmur rose among the people as she strode across the manor yard. A guard raced over the expanse to report her presence. Neuma let him go. She was in no danger from the city’s guardsmen, and
someone
had to tell Garrick of her arrival—though her guess was the Garrick would sense it soon enough, regardless.

A rumbling came from the government center, a blast or pounding of some sort, she couldn’t tell which, but nothing else seemed to be happening, and she did not break stride. Two guardsmen stood in her way. Neuma spoke a word and threw them against the stone wall.

An aura of magic flared from the wall above.

It was a Torean mage, probably new to the craft from the rickety way he built his link. He had run from the building and now his startled face spoke delicious volumes.

Neuma cast blue flames that ripped through the evening with a thundering explosion. The young mage gave a terrified scream that was cut short. The rumbling faded and the dust of debris died down to leave the sight of a gaping hole ripped in the upper walkway of the center’s wall.

More Toreans filed into the area.

Two drew up short, and despite their surprise, prepared a spell that would knit their energy together.

Freeborn, she thought with derision.

Their mages would never be as strong as those of an order, and their attempts to cast in tandem were fanciful at best. Hezarin’s magic filled her. She built a shield, and smirked as Torean fire flowed around her. She was invincible to them, she thought. Untouchable. She sang with laughter and grinned with wild-eyed fury.

Neuma would destroy the Torean Freeborn today just as Garrick had done to her own Koradictines. She would bring the Freeborn to its knees, and then she would revel in watching as Hezarin destroyed Garrick himself.

The plane would be hers.

“Come and get what you deserve,” she yelled as prismatic lightning forked from her palms to splay across the courtyard with another thundering blast.

Voices rose across the pitch, the cries of children, screams of women, and the deeper groans of men. They were all the same, Neuma thought. Everyone was the same when fear overtook them. No cloaks. No veils.